


Meant for Stars

by guessthisishappening



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bones swears a lot, F/M, Female James T. Kirk, Gen, James T. Kirk Has Issues, Open to Interpretation, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 09:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13610280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guessthisishappening/pseuds/guessthisishappening
Summary: Leonard McCoy met Jamie Theodora Kirk on a Saturday morning when he was 29. His first words to the beautiful blonde woman are “I may throw up on you.”Super old - author may have been inspired to post based on the influence of alcohol and re-watching the 2009 remake.





	Meant for Stars

Leonard McCoy met Jamie Theodora Kirk on a Saturday morning when he was 29. His first words to the beautiful blonde woman are “I may throw up on you.” Maybe if he knew he was meeting the new most important person in his life he would’ve said something a little more eloquent, but he was expecting her to be just another girl who took one look at him, at the tan line his recently sold wedding ring had left on his hand, and his scruffy appearance, and turn the other way. He did not expect her to smile and give him a smile and say

“I think these things are pretty safe.”

He’s scared of heights, flying, and shuttles so he snaps back with

“Don’t pander to me, kid, one crack in this hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flares might pop up, cook us in our seats, wait until you’re sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you’re still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence!”

“I hate to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space.” She says with a broad smile.

“Yeah, well, got nowhere else to go, ex-wife took the whole goddamn planet in the divorce…all I got left is my bones.” There’s a moment of silence, and he offers her his flask, which she takes and says

“Jamie T. Kirk - Jim.”

“McCoy, Leonard McCoy.” He replies as they take off, and he has no idea he’s just begun the most important friendship of his entire life, with a five foot five blonde with a mischievous glint that never seemed to leave the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. In retrospect he should’ve known how fucked he was, but in that moment he’s just grateful for someone to talk to.

They spent the whole shuttle ride talking, trading jokes and quips, and he quickly realized that she was funny – and sharp as a tack. By the end of the shuttle ride he felt his lips beginning to stretch uncomfortably and then realizes he was smiling, but then he hears the phantom screams of his last fight with Jocelyn and the smile quickly disappeared.

When they finally got off that goddamned shuttle and set foot back on terra firma he let out a sigh of relief and waited for Jim to run like any sane person would. But she didn’t. No, Jamie stayed firmly next to him throughout the whole orientation for incoming cadets, all the tours, and when it finally came time for them to go find their room assignments she left with a smile and a bright

“See you around, Bones!”

“Wait, kid! What do you mean ‘Bones’?”

“All I got I left is my _bones_!” she parroted back in a poor imitation of his accent before laughing and slipping into the crowd.

Six hours later they were roommates sharing one of the two bedroom, apartment style dorm rooms. Yeah, he still didn’t know exactly how she’d swung that. He suspected hacking the Academy computer systems and forging an Admiral’s signature was involved.

Living with Jim is…interesting…Oh who the fuck is he kidding! He’s a doctor, he shouldn’t have to put up with all this crap! She leaves things EVERYWHERE, she hasn’t grasped the idea of bringing clothes to wear into the bathroom with her when she showers, so at least once every day he sees her wandering their rooms wearing only a towel, she forgets to eat almost all the time, sleeps too much, she is never coherent in the mornings until she has at least one mug of coffee. She parties, she brings home men and women and aliens  alike and stays up entirely too late at night.

She had also, somehow, inexplicably, unexplainably, become his best friend.

She knew about Jocelyn, about Joanna, about the divorce, about his home in Georgia, his penchant for the _occasional_ practical joke, and had never judged or disrespected how he felt or if he did or didn’t want to talk about it. She also trusted him. Something which Jocelyn never did, when he said he’d help her with decorating for the freshman social (yeah, she somehow got herself voted class president within the first two months) she believes he’ll do what he’s promised.

It takes longer though, for him to learn much about her life before she entered high school. After that she’ll chat happily away about it, raised since she was thirteen by her uncle in a small town in Iowa about twenty minutes from Riverside, Captain of the Debate Team, Chemistry Club President, computer programmer, motorcycle rider, in martial arts since she was four, won the North American Martial Arts Competition at seventeen, and was very well liked at school.

It’s a year before he learns why whenever someone talks about life before high school her eyes lose their glint and her smile gets tight.

Their Universal History teacher gives them a short homework assignment, describe what you would do if caught in the Tarsus IV massacre.

When they get back to the dorm after class, she sits down on the couch, pulls out her PADD, like she’s going to start the assignment, and stares at the thing for three hours. He assumes it’s another one of her ticks, like not being able to hear pop music without singing along with it, but when he comes back from getting a bite to eat, she’s still sitting there, staring at the PADD, only now her hands are shaking and tears are streaming out of her wide eyes.

He stands frozen in the doorway for a moment before he sits down on the couch next to her and pulls her into a hug. For a moment she’s frozen, and then slowly begins to place her hands so that she’s hugging him back. Her sobs echoed in the small dorm room, as tears soaked his uniform. He murmurs into her ear, as his hand runs over her head, rocking them back and forth trying to console the crying twenty-two year old in his arms. After what feels like forever, she lifted her head up from where it’d been pressed into his chest, and sniffles out

“It’s the homework.” Yeah, he had suspected as much.

“What about it, darlin’?”

“Tarsus…”she took a shuddering breath - pushed herself back far enough to look into his eyes and said “I was on Tarsus IV. I was there, in Kodos’ audience, when – w-when the culling happened.” Leonard felt his blood run cold, only in their textbooks did anyone – the survivors – call the massacre ‘the culling’. Jim had watched 4,000 people being murdered. Jim had survived that – he didn’t think, he just grabbed her up back into their hug. They stayed like that for God knows how long, and then he whispered

“It was you, wasn’ it? That ‘James Kay’ they always talk about in the textbook, who lead them resistance kids?” His accent thick with emotion and tears suddenly welling up behind his eyes.

“Very astute, Bones.” She said with a wry chuckle. “Yeah, that’s me. They never released my name because of who my dad was, and I chose to have those records sealed.”

“Why? People’d think ya were a hero!”

“Yeah, but they’d also see me as damaged goods. I wanna be seen for who I am, without people treating me like I’m glass.”

“They wouldn’t –”

“You weren’t there when the Federation finally got us off that rock. They wouldn’t say ‘boo’ around us. All we wanted was to get back to normal, but they wouldn’t let us, shunting us from counselor to counselor, trying to get us to ‘talk about our feelings’.” She chuckles darkly at that “They didn’t get it, we survived, we took care of our own. If they had just learned to let us alone sooner we’d have been ready to go home in two weeks instead of a month and a half.”

“What do you mean ‘we took care of our own’?”

Jamie snorted derisively

“We had no adults after the culling, it was just 13 of us, from six to seventeen. We made and mended our own clothes, fed ourselves, fought for our own lives, we stopped being children the day of the culling. We learned how to support ourselves. We also learned to depend on each other, and how to make it through anything. They weren’t there for Hya when he had to fight his father to survive, and for me the first time I killed a man. We could have healed our scars if they had just given us time together, but they just separated us and tried to wring information out of us.”

“What…what did you do?”

“Met in our rooms at night to talk, all together we sorted out the mess in our heads. Then we pieced together what they wanted us to say and do so the therapists would let us go. Then we got on with our lives.”

“Do ya still keep in touch with em’?”

“Not all of the rings my Comm gets in the middle of the night are booty calls, Bones.” And now he feels like an ass as she stares blankly out the small window of the dorm, and he wondered how many others would ever really see the famous Jamie Kirk as she was, and how many more would never see past the façade.

They spend the rest of that night slowly working through her assignment, she has no regrets, so she says she would do all of the things ‘James Kay’ had, though she includes some that aren’t exactly in the history books. Together they figure out how to word the short essay, how to put some of her most painful memories into words without tipping her hand too far, and somehow they keep it together. Jamie keeps the scars from her past from re-opening any more than she has to, and Leonard keeps from completely breaking down because now he knows why she flinches whenever someone drops something heavy or arms a phaser too close to her, and his heart bleeds for her pain, and is amazed by the woman it has made of her.

Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy realizes he loves Jamie Kirk the first time she meets his family. They’ve taken the long Christmas holiday to go visit the homestead in Georgia and from the moment she steps out of the beat up old pickup truck his sister picked them up from the shuttle dock in, in jeans, a grey t-shirt, with her golden hair falling just slightly in front her face he knows his family is screwed, he can tell from her eyes that Jamie Kirk is on point, ready and rearing to go. She bounds up the front steps of the large plantation style home still in her Starfleet boots, her smile bright, looking for all the world like a poster for all that’s good and wholesome in Georgia, though the knife he knows is hidden in that boot of hers says different. His family never stood a chance.

His mother opens the door and smiles at them before grabbing him into a crushing hug.

“Leonard!” She exclaims with a huge smile

“Hey, Ma.” They stay like that for a quiet moment, just appreciating being a family again.

The second they broke apart his Ma’s eyes locked on the pretty blonde on her front porch.

“Well hello there darlin’! You must be Jamie.”

“And you must be the famous Mrs. McCoy.” Jim replies brightly

“Call me Ma, sweetheart. Now what’d’ya  mean ‘famous’? Len been talkin about me?”

“All the time, Ma.” She replies as Ma leads them inside and Leonard cowers under his mother’s sharp look.

“And what’s he been sayin about me?”

“How your pot roast could put chefs to shame and that if you could see the Academy food you’d hit the cooks over the head with your frying pan.”

Ma beamed at that, as they headed into the kitchen. Bones smiles, oh yeah, they’re as fucked as he is.

For the next three hours Ma and Jim ended up talking and cooking – cooking! Jim couldn’t make grilled cheese that wasn’t from a replicator, and nearly burned down the dorm every time she tried, but here she was, in the kitchen of his childhood home, talking inter-galactic politics with his mother and sister. Learning how to make cookies and pot roast, like it was totally natural while he leaned against the doorframe and watched the three of the most important women in his life.

Then Jim turned and grinned at him as she put the cookies in the oven, a flash of sparkling eyes, short blonde hair, pearly white teeth, and Leonard could feel his heart skip a beat or five. The realization he loved Jim, loved her more than he had ever loved Jocelyn, more than he loved the feeling of Georgia sunshine on his skin, more than he loved medicine hit him like a fucking phaser shot to the chest. Leonard Horatio McCoy loved Jamie Theodora Kirk, and even though he somehow knew he had for a while, he still struggled to wrap his head around it.

He stumbled out onto the porch, collapsing on the old rocking chair, staring out at the large property the house sat on, the sun casting a golden glow that only comes in the late afternoon over everything. Joanna was arriving tomorrow, and now he had to prepare for the idea that his five year old daughter might not get along with the woman he loved, and wouldn’t that be a bitch?

He was soon distracted by a loud crash and raucous laughter from the kitchen and knew Jim had probably dropped something, much to everyone’s amusement. He smiled fondly, she was so clumsy when she wasn’t paying attention, he couldn’t count the number of times she had smacked into someone or something because she had been in an animated conversation with him. He snorts because somehow this is his life, this is the woman he loves in all her crazy, clumsy, beautiful, genius glory.

He’s fucking furious when he finds out how she beat the Kobiashy Maru, and while he’s loath to admit it perhaps the look that passed between her and Commander Spock at the Academic Hearing bothers him more, like somehow they recognized each other, and don’t ask him about the way they slowly slot into each other’s life in the space of a few days as they emerged from the shit storm that was Nero and the destruction of Vulcan. He couldn’t help it if he felt replaced, even though Spock and Nyota are obviously deliriously in love, but he’s so relieved when she comes running to him all flushed with excitement at the end of her first week as official Captain of the Enterprise, so happy to be among the stars, out doing the work she had dreamed of, glowing with enthusiasm and pride. He listens contentedly to her babble on excitedly of her dream job, and how she feels on top of the world. And when his shift ends she follows him back to his quarters, and when the hall is clear, abruptly stops her happy chatter and drags him inside his rooms and kisses, _hard_ , and the last coherent thought he has for several hours is that _Jesus_ he’s lucky.

It still hits him, sometimes, how insanely, delusionally, perfectly, serendipitously, mother-fucking lucky he is that this woman, this _Captain_ of a **_Starship_ ** with humans and aliens of all cultures, genders, and ages lining up around the block just to see her smile, wants him. That she comes to his bed every night, smiles at his bad puns, blasts 21st century pop music just to annoy him, goes to his arms at the end of a hard shift. He considers himself the luckiest man in the galaxy that she loves him. Jim Kirk may have been meant for the stars, but he was made for her.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Super old (written 2015) I may or may not have been inspired to post based on a few drinks and re-watching the 2009 remake with my roommates. Jim's interpretation here was based on heavily identifying with Jim very early in life and my endless desire to see myself in every piece of media I consume. Feedback welcome but be warned I probably won't read it as the work does not reflect my current writing abilities (and I might not remember posting it). Jim is not specified as trans or cis because it isn't relevant to Bones' perception of her - headcanon as you wish I'm not the boss of you.


End file.
